SPA 34th Virtual Annual Meeting

Welcome to the SPA 34^th Annual Meeting - and the 1st Virtual Annual Meeting! 

The global pandemic has prompted a new forum for us to connect across the globe, and so on behalf of the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia, I welcome you not to the US Capital as originally scheduled, but to our virtual space! The virtual meeting will offer flexibility for learning and networking, with content sessions augmented by real-time speaker interaction following the presentations. We have worked hard to overcome the unprecedented challenges of this year, and to maintain all the content that has been a hallmark of the meeting. We hope you leave the weekend inspired, energized, and empowered with new knowledge, skills, and ideas for teaching, clinical care, and research!

The Saturday program begins with Drs. Edward Barksdale and Jennifer Dollar, who will challenge us to go beyond the boundaries of traditional medicine and to embrace a role in patient and anesthesiologist advocacy. Dr. Dyann Daley will build upon our role as patient advocate, discussion perioperative identification and prevention of child abuse.

We will expand our clinical knowledge and skills with Dr. Jeffrey Steiner, who will teach us about oxygenation during intubation, and Drs. Walid Alrayashi, Aysha Hasan, and Sampaguita Inez-Tafoya, who will walk us through new ultrasound and regional anesthetic techniques.

Especially timely this year, Dr. Adam Levine joins us from Brown University to talk about epidemics, including his experiences with Ebola and the novel Coronavirus. Before COVID-19, we were focused on the growing prevalence and emerging dangers of vaping and the expanding role of cannabis, not only as a recreational drug, but as a potential therapy. Thus, Nadia Soliman will address novel methods of crowd-science in the setting of cannabis research, and Dr. Philip Morgan will discuss the implications of using a preclinical model in the setting specifically of neurotoxicity. Dr. Christina Diaz will teach us more about how our patients’ vaping affects our anesthetic care.

Our Sunday sessions focus on specific clinical issues and give an opportunity to earn MOCA® Part II Patient Safety credits. Drs. Narasimhan Jagannathan, Megan Albertz, Norma Klein, and Beth Eastburn will identify “error traps” encountered in a variety of anesthesia care settings. Dr. Erika Blacksher will aid us in recognizing the "errors" of differences between equitable and equal health care approaches. Attorney Scott Bentivenga will address perioperative communication, and post-operative pain management will be discussed by Dr. Amy Beethe. These speakers will give us specific tools to identify and change individual and system behaviors by showing how to address these “traps.”

Creating this program has been a team effort, and many thanks are extended to the planning committee: Dr. James Peyton (Program Co-Chair), Dr. Meera Gangadharan (Program Shadow), Dr. Nina Deutsch (SPA Education Committee Chair), and Kim Battle (Association Manager). We hope this meeting will help our attendees embrace leadership and opportunities for change, not only in our own practices, but also in our healthcare system at the local, regional, and national level.

NOTE: Are you unable to attend the live virtual meeting? If you register for the meeting, you may view the sessions on-demand and still claim CME credit. Recordings will be posted within 24-48 hours after the completion of each session. All attendees, whether viewing the sessions live or on-demand, will have 30 days after the end of the live meeting to complete the online evaluation and claim your CME credits. Questions? Please email us at spa@societyhq.com.